It's not really authoritarian if it's enacted by a representative democracy now is it?

The investors and CEO vote just like any other person.

>>>>

So the representative democracy that said women and minorities had no rights wasn't authoritarian because... it was enacted by the majority?

The investors and CEO vote and gain political influence with their money moreso that someone else. One dollar one vote is circumventing the political system and should be illegal in a true Republic/Democracy. The only reason it's legal is because we actually live in a corporate plutocracy. And you're just a gate keeper for the super rich.

Weaver95:Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the president urged the business community to help accelerate the slow economic recovery by increasing hiring and unleashing some of the $2 trillion piling up on their balance sheets.

look...dude...I'm about as big a capitalist as you can get and still be sane. so lemme see if I can explain something to ya: corporations do not recognize the concept of 'the greater good'. they care about one thing: maximum profits. that's it. they don't care about jobs, they don't care about approval ratings, they don't care about morality or ethics. they care about money. they care about how much money they've got, how much they have to spend and how to make more money.

grind it into your skull - corporations do. not. care. they are a necessary evil, and they can do some really great things for you and your economy...but the moment the economic situation changes, they will abandon you to your fate. Use corporations to accomplish your goals. NEVER trust them. Always assume that a corporation will f*ck you over first chance they get. If they behave, hey - that's great! But you'll want a big stick handy just in case they turn against you.

so don't try appealing to the better side of a corporation - they don't have one. instead - focus your efforts on finding ways to get corporations to accomplish your goals. if you have to lie, manipulate and/or resort to outright thuggery in order to bring a corporation to heel then do so...because if situations were reversed, a corporation can and will do so to you and your country.

And this is why any rational person will never, EVER, trust a libertarian.

imgod2u:sethstorm: imgod2u: The tax system is a bit fudgy. If you try to shift the corporate tax burden onto its investors and high earners, then corporations will simply stop paying dividends and accumulate wealth. A corporation is not bound in any way to stay in the U.S. (it can operate anywhere, after all) so it could very well then just move its headquarters to another country along with all of that wealth its accumulated.

Not if the US really has a problem with that. If a company sufficiently offends the US Government enough, no country will be safe.

That's because things have not changed from appeasement to enforcement. The next FDR we get, he'll have no problem going big and going global. It's only a matter of time before the next one gets elected.

There are several issues here - several of which are in conflict with each other. First of which is the opinion that businesses are in place solely to provide a wage for the working class. Most businesses weren't created for the purpose of hiring people - they were created for the purpose of delivering a product or service to consumers. Employees are just a necessity of doing business for most companies - but employees aren't the reason those companies exist.

According to the SBA, small businesses employee over half of all non-governmental workers in the US. They represent 99.7% of all employer firms and generated over 65% of all new hires in the last 15 years. The owners are more typically the guy next door who owns the neighborhood hardware store or the construction firm that built the new school. These are the guys that are afraid of getting screwed over by new or "anticipated" employment regulations. These are the guys that aren't hiring - not because they don't want to, but because they don't need to (people aren't buying their goods right now, so why add more unnecessary mouths to feed).

On the flip side, when a company gets so large that their balance sheet looks more like the budget for a South American country, there needs to be some mandatory concessions given back to aid the general population. The problem is how to protect the small business owner working out of his garage, so he can grow into the massive employer that has the ability to build these social safety nets into their bottom line.

Tonka Truck:There are several issues here - several of which are in conflict with each other. First of which is the opinion that businesses are in place solely to provide a wage for the working class. Most businesses weren't created for the purpose of hiring people - they were created for the purpose of delivering a product or service to consumers. Employees are just a necessity of doing business for most companies - but employees aren't the reason those companies exist.

According to the SBA, small businesses employee over half of all non-governmental workers in the US. They represent 99.7% of all employer firms and generated over 65% of all new hires in the last 15 years. The owners are more typically the guy next door who owns the neighborhood hardware store or the construction firm that built the new school. These are the guys that are afraid of getting screwed over by new or "anticipated" employment regulations. These are the guys that aren't hiring - not because they don't want to, but because they don't need to (people aren't buying their goods right now, so why add more unnecessary mouths to feed).

On the flip side, when a company gets so large that their balance sheet looks more like the budget for a South American country, there needs to be some mandatory concessions given back to aid the general population. The problem is how to protect the small business owner working out of his garage, so he can grow into the massive employer that has the ability to build these social safety nets into their bottom line.

Progressive taxation at the corporate level kinda handles this already. The problem is that after a corporate gets sufficiently big, they have the resources to move to another country and shelter their income from taxes while still having a sales/distribution network in the U.S. to gain revenue.

It also doesn't help that the truly wealthy gain their money from dividends and investments, both of which allows them to be taxed at 15% of their gained income unless they're completely f*cking retarded.

Basically, the top 1% who owns a giant chunk of the wealth in this country doesn't even pay the most taxes as a percentage of their income. Add to this the growing cost of healthcare, food and certain goods on top of predatory credit card and loan practices and it's easy to see how we're devolving into serfdom.

But no. Raising taxes -- or hell, just making them proportional to income -- would be SOCIALISM!! And that's something only sekrit moslam fascists do.

imgod2u:Tonka Truck: There are several issues here - several of which are in conflict with each other. First of which is the opinion that businesses are in place solely to provide a wage for the working class. Most businesses weren't created for the purpose of hiring people - they were created for the purpose of delivering a product or service to consumers. Employees are just a necessity of doing business for most companies - but employees aren't the reason those companies exist.

According to the SBA, small businesses employee over half of all non-governmental workers in the US. They represent 99.7% of all employer firms and generated over 65% of all new hires in the last 15 years. The owners are more typically the guy next door who owns the neighborhood hardware store or the construction firm that built the new school. These are the guys that are afraid of getting screwed over by new or "anticipated" employment regulations. These are the guys that aren't hiring - not because they don't want to, but because they don't need to (people aren't buying their goods right now, so why add more unnecessary mouths to feed).

On the flip side, when a company gets so large that their balance sheet looks more like the budget for a South American country, there needs to be some mandatory concessions given back to aid the general population. The problem is how to protect the small business owner working out of his garage, so he can grow into the massive employer that has the ability to build these social safety nets into their bottom line.

Progressive taxation at the corporate level kinda handles this already. The problem is that after a corporate gets sufficiently big, they have the resources to move to another country and shelter their income from taxes while still having a sales/distribution network in the U.S. to gain revenue.

It also doesn't help that the truly wealthy gain their money from dividends and investments, both of which allows them to be taxed at 15% of their gained income unless they're completely f*cking retarded.

Basically, the top 1% who owns a giant chunk of the wealth in this country doesn't even pay the most taxes as a percentage of their income. Add to this the growing cost of healthcare, food and certain goods on top of predatory credit card and loan practices and it's easy to see how we're devolving into serfdom.

But no. Raising taxes -- or hell, just making them proportional to income -- would be SOCIALISM!! And that's something only sekrit moslam fascists do.

That's why I like the idea of either a consumption tax or something like the fair tax. Too many ways to hide income - both legally (like Steve Jobs being paid $1 per year and living off of his dividends at 15%) to illegal (like organized crime, drug dealers, etc. - all pretty good paying but with little or no "taxable" income)

So what magic or perhaps extraterrestrial force corrupted things? If things were so perfect originally (and they must have been, since The Founding Fathers were god-like seers and wizards), how did it get so bad? The Devil, perhaps?

A good place to start is FDR. His threat to the courts to stack the bench in order to get his New Deal to pass constitutional muster. The courts narrowly allowed him to move forward in order to prevent a constitutional crisis and another potential US civil war or Egypt style uprising. This was the the original major breach of the Constitutional firewall from which all further expansion of government power has usurped the original intent. See Wickard v. Filburn for an example.

And that New Deal was horrible, allowing your family to enjoy a middle class life. What was FDR thinking when he threatened the right wing conservative aristocracy? Obviously if we just went back to white land owners as the basic foundation of society everything would be better again.

Tonka TruckThat's why I like the idea of either a consumption tax or something like the fair tax. Too many ways to hide income - both legally (like Steve Jobs being paid $1 per year and living off of his dividends at 15%) to illegal (like organized crime, drug dealers, etc. - all pretty good paying but with little or no "taxable" income)

I'm down with a "Fair Tax" as long as we also get rid of property tax. Then I'll just disconnect from capitalism entirely and all you'll see are my two middle fingers.

RodddxlA good place to start is FDR. His threat to the courts to stack the bench in order to get his New Deal to pass constitutional muster. The courts narrowly allowed him to move forward in order to prevent a constitutional crisis and another potential US civil war or Egypt style uprising. This was the the original major breach of the Constitutional firewall from which all further expansion of government power has usurped the original intent. See Wickard v. Filburn for an example.

The alternative to the New Deal was probably a Communist insurrection and the effective end of the United States (either from their success or the tyranny necessary to keep people from complaining when they can't eat). So the New Deal didn't cause the failure; it was a response.

Also, that was ~30 years after the trust-busting era, which was a response to, as I think I've said, a time when the most cunning and ruthless capitalists had gotten individually powerful enough to subvert the 'free market' system. But that still wasn't enough.

One way or another, capitalism leads invariably to oligarchy and/or collapse. Regulations can stave it off, but such a system has no stable equilibrium.

You summed up FDR nicely. No rational thought or reasoning on what the constitution says or the tyranny of his actions. Only emotional hand wringing. New Deal or Raw Deal. Try it. You might learn something. Nah. Scratch that. You lack the intellectual integrity for it to be any use.

RanDomino:RodddxlA good place to start is FDR. His threat to the courts to stack the bench in order to get his New Deal to pass constitutional muster. The courts narrowly allowed him to move forward in order to prevent a constitutional crisis and another potential US civil war or Egypt style uprising. This was the the original major breach of the Constitutional firewall from which all further expansion of government power has usurped the original intent. See Wickard v. Filburn for an example.

The alternative to the New Deal was probably a Communist insurrection and the effective end of the United States (either from their success or the tyranny necessary to keep people from complaining when they can't eat). So the New Deal didn't cause the failure; it was a response.

I wasn't referring to the New Deal per se. It was the precedent that the courts assumed they had the power to grant the government extraconstitutional powers.

A lot of experts point out that FDR's policies exacerbated a recession and made it into the Great Depression. The alternative to the New Deal was a rapid recovery.

Big Al:And that New Deal was horrible, allowing your family to enjoy a middle class life. What was FDR thinking when he threatened the right wing conservative aristocracy? Obviously if we just went back to land owners as the basic foundation of society everything would be better again.